True but you're better of combating waste, land degradation, land access/commoditization, etc than inventing some overall lack of arable land. Bigger actual benefits tend to stem from the controlled environment. Sure there are places where these things make sense if you want to limit transport (Water retention in the arab peninsula or the like) but honestly we see it hyped more often in places where it does not.

It's the same nonsensical reasoning behind putting solar panels in places where they don't make sense. I remember france putting money in a solar panel road that was both ridiculously overpriced and ridiculously ineffective for reasons completely predictable. Of course places where solar panels made sense were in essence still barely utilised. Someone just made a lot of money off of the invented scarcity.

I agree with the notion that technology should be used appropriately, but the issue seems to be corruption and that people buy into hypes and misallocate technology, not that the technology itself is useless. I am sure that some corrupt officials manage to overpay for sand in Sahara.